James Cameron and Michael Bay

At the premiere afterparty for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in June 2009, Michael Bay stood among well-wishers, took a deep breath and stated definitively that he was taking a break from the franchise. That decision lasted a week. But it took Paramount Pictures a lot longer to get Bay to commit to making the third film, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, in 3D -- a move that would escalate the scale and appeal of the machines-come-to-life franchise, which had already grossed $1.55 billion worldwide, and would draw higher ticket prices to boot. (In 2010, 3D movies made up 21 percent of U.S. and Canadian ticket sales, about $2.2 billion, even as total box office remained static at $10.6 billion.) Bay was on record as having dismissed 3D as a "gimmick" and the cumbersome technology as a terrible fit for his fast-moving, aggressive filmmaking style. But in an unexpected turn, Paramount had a secret weapon.